Instilling and maintaining employee morale and motivation are issues as old as the existence of the employer-employee relationships itself Engendering loyalty and an attitude of conscientiousness and hard work is always important to the success of an enterprise. However, too often, it is difficult to achieve.
One method employers have had to aid in motivating employees are employee recognition and awards programs. In smaller enterprises, especially in the past, it was common for all employees to see each other frequently. Thus, any rewards or achievements received by one employee were more likely to be apparent to others, thereby providing motivation to other employees to strive to do better or emulate the other employee out of a sense of pride in them selves in order to achieve similar rewards. However, contact between employees in larger enterprises is much less likely, making it more difficult to advertise awards and employee recognition. Furthermore, even many smaller enterprises today have work forces that are spread out across a wide geographic area such that personal interactions between employees and their employers and fellow employees is sometimes rare or non-existent with communication provided by means of various technologies. Thus, methods of motivating employees that depend on personal interaction are often lacking.